US Secretary of State Wants to Regulate BTC Like Other E-Transactions

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Bitcoin should be regulated the same way as other electronic financial transactions.

U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo believes that Bitcoin should be regulated the same way as other electronic financial transactions

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United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo believes Bitcoin (BTC) should be regulated the same way as other electronic financial transactions.

Security risks of reduced governmental monitoring

In an interview with Squawk Box on Aug. 20, Pompeo pointed out the risk of anonymous transactions associated with crypto, saying:

“The risk with anonymous transactions is one that we all know well. We know this from 9/11 and terror activity that took place in the 15 years preceding that where we didn’t have good tracking, we didn’t have the capacity to understand money flows and who was moving money.”

CNBC host Joe Kernen brought up the subject of Bitcoin in terms of terrorism and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Specifically, Kernen recalled a viral claim by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that cash is not used for nefarious activities as much as Bitcoin is.

When asked for his stance on Mnuchin’s statements, Pompeo appeared to support the secretary to a degree, expressing his hope that crypto and anonymous transactions will not become the norm since that “would decrease the security for the world.”

Equal regulation

However, in contrast to Mnuchin’s intentions to enforce strong regulations in the space, Pompeo expressed his vision of regulating Bitcoin the same way as all other electronic financial transactions.

Last month, a former executive at German multinational investment bank Deutsche Bank published an article claiming Bitcoin is a leading indicator of hidden geopolitical tensions.

3 Comments

Tom Gilchrist

Whats the point if government has control over it?

Sung Cha

Pompeo's statement is logically not sound: There has always been terrorist funding via fiat currencies and other methods before the existence of BTC and cryptocurrencies. Sept. 11th happened in 2001, almost ten years before BTC was introduced. Therefore, not all terrorist acts are funded only through Cryptos.

Marcello Grasso

For sure the secret services use it more than terrorists but who is the agent and who is the terrorist? Who know it?